


Everyone Dies

by failsafe



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Dark, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 03:04:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy wishes they had a chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Dies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



> Sheeana, I really hope that this is neither excessively dark nor not dark enough. I saw your request for "character death' and tried to think of an opportunity to handle that with another of your requests. I really hope you enjoy it. Happy Halloween!

Sometimes in the fight of good against evil, people died.

Billy had known that since before he had known the difference in fiction and reality. Before he had known anything about the real Avengers, he had understood their counterparts that had jumped off a printed page at him. He had known that when the heroes were in deadly danger, they were still likely to pull it together and win. He had also known that even when that victory came at the cost of one of their friends' lives that it was entirely possible that a few issues later that person would come back, never really having been dead at all.

Life as a real superhero had taught him differently.

The first time they had lost someone, there had been no going back. It was true that life and death weren't always absolute, but maybe that made it worse. Sometimes, usually, what a person that had the power to change it was faced with was whether or not they should. When Cassie died, it had been beyond him to do anything to change it. No amount of wishing would have brought her back.

No amount of wishing... But things were different now.

\- - -

It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be the kind of _good thing_ they did just because they were heroes and because there were people who needed them to. Those all sounded like the kinds of arguments they must have given each other before they had agreed to this. They had been laughing together one dull nutmeg autumn night. There were a lot of things in the City, out of the City, up somewhere in inner space, they could have done. 

Only, America had an idea. 

They hadn't even really objected, as far as Billy could remember when he realized they had made a mistake. No one seemed to remember the mayfly dimensions, the dimensions where physics didn't even make parodied sense, and the dimensions that still were worthy of nightmares. No one had seen fit to object on those grounds. It would have, Billy thought through a terrified hum in his brain, made too much sense. 

America had put her foot down against the dully reflective surface of the floor, and it had given way to another dimension, or the doorway to it. They had each followed through, trusting the gap in reality without any reservations, the way only a team could. On the other side, there was supposed to be a good time doing the right thing. 

Instead, the place they were all standing next was just sort of bleak. The air was cool and lifeless and there was a faint smell of something like recently dissipated smoke. 

Billy noticed that Tommy was sniffing the air freely, audibly, and that made him just a little more nervous. 

“This isn't right,” America remarked, looking around with keen eyes. The sky is a dull, blank gray like the last moments before sunrise on a miserable day. “They were... supposed to be here. I had told them I'd come back, I—”

“You planned this,” Kate interjected with some little lilt that sounded like a brave face. 

“Was my turn, princess,” America said, taking the cue and trying to sound brave, too. 

“We're too late,” Tommy said, drawing a conclusion faster than any of the rest of them can stop trying to accept that they're there. His hand clenched into a fist.

“What? No,” America insisted. Then she did a slow, full turn to assess her own claim. “This isn't the right one...” 

“The wrong dimension?” David asked. He moved in a little closer, his body language a little guarded and trying to keep an eye out for his own back while he approached her. “Can you tell us a little, in your own terms, how your dimension-hopping works?” 

America started to say one thing, looked at David and started to say another. 

“Well, it's kinda... complicated,” she said, but it didn't seem quite complete when she looked back around to shift her focus to something that seemed to require it, “to explain.” 

“You could try. Perhaps it would help us work out a way to get where we were going,” he suggested. 

“Asking me to get out and ask for directions?” America asked dryly. “It's just a dimensional butt-dial. Hardly ever happens to me. In fact, never happens to me, but there's a first time for—”

America stopped, and when Billy looked he saw tear in her jacket sleeve. Through the tear, there was a pale line etched across her skin which began to redden and suddenly to pour out much more blood than it seemed like it should. 

“What happened?” Tommy asked. 

Billy's stomach knotted. Somehow, even Tommy hadn't seen. 

“Too slow?” Tommy continued, taking his turn to sound cavalier and brave. 

“That shouldn't be. She should be invulnerable to anything like that,” David said, hesitating. 

The group moved in closer and Billy moved with them, even if he couldn't quite say what was happening or why. The sound of scuffed pavement rattled and grated louder than anything. For some reason, they formed a nearly circular formation, back to back, and for a moment it felt almost safe – a chance to exhale. Then it happened. 

Out of the darkness, the circling creatures lunged. They looked like dogs, but they weren't dogs. They were large with a dark covering of fur or something cold and slick. It was hard for Billy to make sense of it but his cape protected him from the first lunge. Whether they were interdimensional dogs or hounds or wolves or not, they had very sharp teeth. 

As they leapt forward, their claws showed too – brown in low, dull light but with yellowed translucent patches that made them look ready to break and splinter. 

America's blood was in the air, and the rattling sound of sniffing breaths intensified. She was the first to fall to the ground. She kicked hard and one of he creatures fell away from her, but where there ought to have been a yelp of pain there was just another vicious snarl. 

Billy tried to call forth lightning to help her, but the bolt that grazed the second creature who approached America before he or anyone else could quite reach her seemed weak. Something about the air. 

David was muttering to himself, looking around as if he were making simple calculations on the fly about their surroundings. Whether he was able to or not, Billy knew what it was like to just hope and pray that you were in control. David ran toward a nearby fence and started to test its links, but rather than climbing up and leaving them behind, he got up a few footholds and began to look left and right. David knew that his best shot at helping was to be the one to see some overlooked advantage. 

He hadn't gotten high enough. He cried out when one of the creatures sank its teeth into the back of his leg and he fell backward, helplessly. 

Billy tried not to even hear the ensuing struggle and instead glanced at America, hoping for an emergency portal and a way out of here. At first, he didn't see America. Then he looked down. 

She was covered in blood. More blood. A lot of blood, from neck to the waistband of her shorts. She was breathing, awake, and somehow through the fray all Billy could do was go to her. He tried to think of any power he had that would help her here. 

“Need... Need ya to listen to me...” America got out, breath on the verge of wheezing, coughing in a way that showed that this was not just going to go away. 

“No, M-Miss America—” Billy tried to object, using her chosen name in a way they usually didn't. He just really wanted to believe this was one of those superhero moments. He had never gotten over it, ever since the days when it was no different than if it were on printed paper. 

“Need ya to...” America repeated, looking away and coughing. 

David cried out in pain, more loudly than before. 

“That is the _last_ time,” Tommy growled. Billy heard impact after impact. A groan of pain from Tommy that he fought through. And yet no matter how Tommy tried to defend himself or his friend from the creatures that came from the morning-gray darkness, there was never a single yelp nor act of retreat. 

“ _I wish it would slow down_ ,” Billy said for the first time. At first, he hesitated but then he committed because this was the only use of his powers he could think of. He closed his eyes and tried to find a center as he gently touched the side of America's hand so she would know that he cared, even if he was going to fix this so she would never remember. Somehow. “ _I wish it would slow down, I wish it would slow down..._ ” 

“Sometimes, there are—” America said heavily, then she tried to push back against Billy's hand. Her movement was so weak, and it didn't make sense. Nothing about this made sense. Almost _nothing_ could hurt America. 

“No!” Tommy cried in a loud voice. Billy knew without looking. 

He looked where he was supposed to look, he thought. He couldn't see Tommy or David at that angle, but then he did see what his magic had done. America was speaking slowly, weakly, anyway. But now, he noticed. 

He hadn't heard another sound from David. He had heard Tommy cry out in anger, rage, and anguish. He had – Teddy? But Kate was right in his view, and in the moment that he looked he could see, played out for him in slow motion, one of the few mistakes he had ever seen Kate make. She had chosen just one instant too late to switch from arrows to using some other way to fend off the monsters. Somehow, she managed to stay on her feet, but in moments she was fighting back but bleeding, badly. Her knees gave a little. 

“Kate!” Tommy said through an obviously wet and still-angered voice. His voice rattled and he tried to reach to her side. 

_I wish it would slow down..._

Tommy was slow, too. Too slow and by the time he had reached Kate, her knees had given and she had fallen. She was bleeding, unconscious, or worse. Tommy reached her and instead of trying to circle around her to give her any kind of protection, Tommy could only fall over her and try to keep her safe. Safe, when he was already too late. It didn't take long for one of the creatures to get to him, either – first his shoulder, then his back, with sharp and nasty teeth. 

David. America. Kate. Tommy. One... two... three... four... and... 

“Billy!” 

Teddy. Five. One. He was the only one left, and the momentary spark of relief tied a knot in Billy's stomach. What was he supposed to do with that? Teddy was the last not dead or dying, but the others were their friends. 

“Billy, look at me,” he said. Billy looked at Hulkling's near-armored skin and the way his eyes showed that they were wet, flooding, blurring his vision. “Do you remember? Back when we first worked on your magic.” 

Billy felt hands on his shoulders, just as he had then. 

“I remember...” he said, closing his eyes after one more memorizing look at Teddy's, in case this was goodbye. 

“Look at me,” Teddy demanded. 

Billy's eyes snapped back open, only in time to see the wince as teeth tried for Hulkling's skin. 

“... I told you to focus on what you want. That _one_ thing. The _one_ thing you _need most_... what you _want most_...” Teddy insisted, gripping his shoulders a little more tightly. Each emphasis seemed to coincide with another gnashing of teeth against Teddy's skin. 

Billy stared at him, breathed momentarily through his mouth, then he nodded just once. He closed his eyes, bowed his head toward Teddy's chest without quite reaching it. He gulped. He exhaled. He hoped.

“ _I wish we had a chance... I wish we had a chance_...” 


End file.
